


in case you don't live forever

by roguethirteen



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Soft Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Soft Lena Luthor, not actually sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24984691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguethirteen/pseuds/roguethirteen
Summary: Kara comes back slightly worse for wear from Supergirl duty and Lena realises she has something to tell her.(Set post season 5, because I'm a clown and still hope for supercorp after all this)
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 9
Kudos: 308





	in case you don't live forever

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Ben Platt's In Case You Don't Live Forever (which is a super beautiful song, so please go and listen if you haven't already). 
> 
> The first time I heard it, it screamed these two for me, so much so that it has prompted me to write my first ever fic! I hope you enjoy.

Kara waves to J’onn as he flies off, and stumbles slightly as she comes through Lena’s balcony door, the night’s battle evident both on her face and in her slightly weary walk for everyone present to see as she enters. But that’s the thing- it’s only Lena there.

They’ve been starting to get back in the swing of their old friendship, one that existed on a different earth. The conversations they had whilst stopping Leviathan were the first of many between them, and whilst things aren’t perfect, Lena thinks, hopes even, that in the long run, things will be better between her and Kara than they ever were before.

The stumble attracts Lena’s attention, as she looks up to see her hero making an entrance.

“Rough day at the office?”, she jokes, a slight smile on her face.

The smile drops as Kara walks into the light, lip split and a bruise forming around her left eye.

“I didn’t have a board meeting in mine, so probably a little less tough than yours”, Kara jokes back.

The joke almost eases Lena. _Almost._

“What happened?”, she asks as she’s standing up and heading towards the blonde. She knows she could watch the tv for a blow by blow account when Kara goes out on duty, but she struggles more and more with the concept every time it happens.

It’s not like she doesn’t know Kara isn’t invincible. She knows kryptonite can hurt her, kill her even. And Lena knows that Kara will never back down from the fight, not whilst there’s still people that need her help, and that sometimes she pushes too far, that she blows her powers, like she appears to have tonight, and becomes just as vulnerable as any human walking the planet.

But it scares Lena more than it did before. Now she knows that it’s her best friend out there taking the hits. She’s proud, so unbelievably proud that it’s Kara, of course it’s Kara, but she’s so unbelievably scared too.

Every time she’s faced the prospect of Kara’s mortality, she’s forced to face more parts of herself too. The parts she now can’t deny. The parts of her that are irrevocably in love with Kara Danvers.

“I’m okay”, Kara says as she makes it to the couch. “I’ve just solar flared a little. I didn’t want to go home and be alone, so J’onn dropped me here, and Alex is going to drop a sunlamp through when she can.”

“A little?” Lena replies sceptically. She isn’t convinced at the tone Kara says she’s okay in, but she can’t deny the warmth that spreads in her chest at the thought Kara chose here to come and be vulnerable.

“I’ll run you a bath and order some food. Pick something for us to watch when you’re done,” she says as she’s already on route to the bathroom.

_“You put all your faith in my dreams,  
_ _You gave me the world I wanted,  
_ _What did I do to deserve you?”_

As she sits with the bath running, watching the flow of water, she loses herself in thought. She thinks of Kara, sat on her couch in the other room, still so full of sunshine despite being hurt, still here for her despite everything that has happened, despite the things she did. Lena knows both of them were in the wrong at some point or other, but she also knows Kara had her back far more times than any other person would have, even her own brother, and still believed in her even when Lena had given her reasons not to.

She’s startled from her thoughts by a hand being softly placed on her shoulder, as Kara leans past her to turn off the tap, just moments before the bath begins to overrun. “Always saving the day, Supergirl? No problem too small.”

“That’s me,” Kara replies as she jokingly drops into her typical Supergirl stance. “Anyway, penny for ‘em?”

Lena looks at Kara, straight into those blue eyes, beyond confused. “Your thoughts?” she continues, “the way that bath was filling, you definitely weren’t here.”

Lena breaks the eye contact, wary to be so deep in these thoughts around the subject of them. She sighs, “I’m still thinking about today’s board meeting. A lot of the board are having issues with the policies and plans I’m trying to reimplement from L-Corp.”

Unexpectedly, Kara wraps her in a warm hug. Lena falls into it, rubbing her hands along Kara’s back. She still hasn’t taken her suit off, and as Lena moves her hand under the cape, she feels for all the ridges in the blue material, counting them as she goes, each one a physical reminder that despite everything that has happened, Kara is here, safe, and in front of her.

“You need to go easier on yourself,” Kara sighs into her ear, “you work so hard, you do so much good, and if people can’t appreciate what you do, then screw them.”

_“I follow your steps with my feet  
_ _I walk on the road that you started  
_ _I need you to know that I heard you, every word”_

Kara settles in for the bath, as Lena takes her now empty wine glass from the coffee table to the kitchen for a refill. She thinks on Kara’s words, thinks of all the good she’s tried to do since she’s been able to really. The good she’s tried to do to offset the bad attached to the Luthor name.

A Luthor and a Super. Who would have thought it? She laughs softly into the rim of her wine glass as she takes a sip. Whilst Lena’s always been very sure of her own path and own choices, she can’t deny the part Kara has played in her path, before she even knew of her. After all, it was the blue and red of Supergirl that brought her and L-Corp to National City, that encouraged her to do good. It was the kindness and courage she saw in Kara Danvers that encouraged to continue to do more for the local communities too.

The path she treads is her own, all the choices made, good and bad, are hers too, but she can’t deny that she’s always trying to live up to the hope Supergirl provides, and the faith that Kara Danvers puts in her.

_“We’ve only got so much time,  
_ _I’m pretty sure it would kill me  
_ _If you didn’t know the pieces of me are pieces of you”_

Kara tucks into the plate Lena has put down in front of her. Her favourites, more potstickers than any normal person could consume in one sitting, and next to it, a plate of sweet treats, lay before her. “I don- know wha- a’d do wi-ou oo,” Kara manages around a forkful of food.

“Do you want to try that again? In English?” Lena laughs as she reaches for her wine and settles back in, trying and failing to pay attention to whatever show Kara has found for them to watch. Despite her best efforts, she can’t manage to keep her attention away from the blond occupying the other end of her couch.

The bruise is really starting to come out now, looking a few days old, but the lip is looking a lot better. The lamp Alex dropped off whilst Kara was in the bath is working away in the corner, it’s yellow sun radiation healing Kara before her very eyes. As Lena focuses on it, she thinks of the other times she’s came close to losing Kara, her best friend, the woman she loves.

There’s this fear that’s always stopped her whenever she’s thought about telling Kara how she feels. But as she sits there, watching Kara, her face almost aglow in the lamplight, a smile stretching across her features as she laughs at the show, Lena can’t for the life of her remember why she was so scared before. They’ve survived the worst, she thinks now, the comeback of Lex and its fallout, the betrayals they both committed, and somehow, they’ve found their way back to each other.

Lena thinks of the progress she’s made since knowing Kara, and whilst it’s been her own hard work, she sees echoes of Kara in what she does, and the choices she makes, and she sees reminders of Kara all through her life and home. She thinks of the way she now has too sweet hot chocolate in the winter, and the way there’s a bottle of Aldebaran rum under her sink, the way there’s a drawer and half a wardrobe full of Kara’s clothes in her penthouse, and the way her happiness is inextricably linked to Kara’s.

The words tumble out of her mouth before she’s even had the chance to realise she’s said it.

“I love you.”

_“I’ve waited too long to say,  
_ _Everything you mean to me”_

For the longest second, Lena imagines she’s said it. Surely she hasn’t just blurted it out? She means it, of course she means it, she means it with her whole heart, but she doesn’t know if she’d meant to say it right now.

The fork on the way to Kara’s mouth stops, as Kara looks round at her friend, a smile forming on her face. “Ohh Lee, I love you too!”

Lena’s heart drops for a second. She could leave it there, pretend it was a platonic declaration, and Kara would be none the wiser. But she doesn’t want to. She wants to be brave, she wants to tell the truth. After everything that has passed between them, the truth feels like the most important thing they have. She never wants to lie to Kara ever again.

_“In case you don’t live forever, let me tell you now,  
_ _I love you more than you’ll ever wrap your head around”_

Lena takes a deep breath, inhaling for three, exhaling for two and then comes out with it. “No, Kara, you misunderstand me.” Kara looks at her confused, head tilted ever so slightly to the side, but a warm half smile still on her face.

“I don-,” she’s cut off before she can finish.

“I’m in love with you. I have been for longer than I care to admit. But I need you to know. I think of everything we’ve gone through, with the Daxamites, with Sam and Reign, everything with Kasnia and Lex, this year and last. The Crisis and everything that followed. I realised I can’t live my life without you in it, and that that’s because I love you, because I am in love with you. For everything you are and everything you make me. And I don’t need you to say it back, that’s not- I didn’t say it for you to say it back. I said it because I need you to know, because I can’t have something happen to one of us, or both us without you knowing how I feel about you, without you knowing that my heart belongs to you, Kara Zor-El.”

Lena doesn’t have time to think about what she’s just said, what she’s just done, before she feels the softest pair of lips she’s ever felt on hers, and strong yet soft hands, one on the side of her face, the other curling protectively around the back of her neck. She absently thinks the lamp must be nearly finished because she hardly even saw Kara move towards her, it was that quick.

_“In case you don’t live forever let me tell you the truth,  
_ _I am everything I am because of you.”_

“Oh Lena, haven’t you seen it? I’m in love with you too.”


End file.
